The Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb

Lemming of Discord

The Six Duchies are troubled by internal strife. King Shrewd's eldest son and heir, Prince Chivalry, has fathered an illegitimate son. Riven by guilt and controversy, Chivalry abdicates his position and goes into into exile. His son, Fitz, is raised in Buckkeep and tutored in the ways of becoming an assassin. For King Shrewd, Fitz is a weapon he can use to further the cause of his kingdom. But all Fitz wants is a home and a place to belong.

Assassin's Apprentice, originally published in 1995, is the first volume in The Farseer Trilogy, the first of nine books focused on the character of Fitz and also the first book in a sixteen-volume series entitled The Realm of the Elderlings. For a book that launched an enormously successful series, it is relatively small-scale and restrained.

This is traditional epic fantasy, but one that is slanted a little from the standard. It's medieval faux Europe, but the land of the Six Duchies is based on Alaska (albeit a slightly warmer one) and the neighbouring Mountain Kingdom is more inspired by Tibet. There are existential threats - the Red Ship Raiders who ravage the coastline and the threat of civil war - but for the most part these are kept firmly in the background. Assassin's Apprentice is primarily the coming of age tale of FitzChivalry Farseer as he grows up, gains allies, masters the art of the assassin and encounters two forms of magic: the Skill, a form of telepathic communication and control, and the Wit, a bond of empathy with animals.

Robin Hobb's greatest strength is her deft hand with charaterisation and her naturalistic way of presenting the world. Her greatest weakness is a tendency to meander, to have characters sitting around talking about the plot rather than getting on with things and taking a hundred pages to do what a more concise author would do in ten. These weaknesses manifest much more strongly in the later volumes of the series, however. Assassin's Apprentice is, at 480 pages in paperback, relatively short and breezy by Hobb's standards with both a strong character focus and clarity of storytelling.

Much of your enjoyment of these books relies on your engagement with the main character, Fitz. Fitz is an introverted, introspective young man who spends a lot of time reacting to events rather than taking decisive action (this changes in later novels, in which he is a lot less passive). This can be frustrating, but it is also realistic: Fitz occupies a place less than nobility but more than being a peasant, and this dichotomy leaves him isolated and almost friendless, his position in the world uncertain and unreliable. It is only towards the end of the volume, when he visits the Mountain Kingdom and encounters people less concerned with rank and pomp, that he is able to come out of his shell a little. As it stands, Fitz is a mildly engaging but far-from-compelling central character. However, he does serve as an effectively unreliable narrator: the further things and events are from Fitz's perspective, the less reliable they are. This serves to upset reader expectations several times over the course of the trilogy. It's not exactly Gene Wolfe, but it is an effective way of getting the reader to share in Fitz's biases and ignorance before presenting them with the truth of events later on.

Hobb is a superior prose writer and a gifted communicator of emotions and atmosphere. Although it's not a primary focus of her writing, she is also a good writer of horror: the Forged, people with their morals stripped away to be turned into monstrous echoes of their former selves, are a truly disturbing fantasy creation. In terms of politics she stumbles a little. Concluding events in the Mountain Kingdom are highly implausible and the way that Fitz escapes retribution for the events people genuinely believe that he has committed is extremely unconvincing. Fitz should be dead three times over before the book ends and the fact he isn't stretches the suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.

But there's also a lot to enjoy here. Fitz's tortured upbringing, his relationship with Burrich and Chade, and his punishing tutelage under Galen are all vividly (and sometimes painfully) described. The Red Ship Raiders are an intriguing enemy and the Forged a horrifying creation. Certainly the novel leaves one wanting to move onto the sequel, Royal Assassin.

Assassin's Apprentice (****) is thus a conflicted book: extremely well-written with a interesting backdrop and a terrific atmosphere, but with a plot that is a bit start-stop and political intrigue that is rather undercooked. But in terms of emotional engagement and its use of an unreliable narrator, Hobb is a formidable writer. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

author of novels

I absolutely loved the original trilogy, and you're right to say she's a gifted communicator of character and emotion; but I wonder if her continued "exploration" of her fantasy land is maybe a problem. I simply couldn't imagine writing so many novels based in the same milieu. Same thing for Pratchett: brilliant though he was, I got bored after about book 7.

Lemming of Discord

I think there is a key difference in that Pratchett didn't really explore the same milieu: the world changed, radically, over the course of the books (the world evolves from medieval/renaissance in the first book to firmly Victorian steampunk by the end) and his books spanned the entire planet. His writing style and thematic concerns also radically evolved over the course of the series and the tone could vary immensely.

Based over the six Hobb books I've read and what I know of the later seven, the world pretty much stays the same with some minor shifts in politics but certainly no major technological or sociological innovation, and the stories all take place in the Six Duchies, the Rain Wilds, the Cursed Shores or a couple of offshore islands, spanning an area maybe the size of Alaska (or a little bit more) at best.

Lemming of Discord

Winter has fallen, bringing a brief respite from the depredations of the Red Ship Raiders. Fitz, returning to Buckkeep from the Mountain Kingdom, finds Prince Verity working hard to build ships and watchtowers to defend the coast, but everywhere the conniving Prince Regal is working to undermine his brother and pave his own way to the throne. When Verity embarks on an ill-advised quest to help save his kingdom, it falls to Fitz to try to hold everything together in his absence.

The middle volume of The Farseer Trilogy is Robin Hobb's attempt to avoid "middle book syndrome", that annoying situation where a book has no real opening or ending. As such, Royal Assassin tries to work as its own self-contained story in the structure of both the larger trilogy and the much larger Realm of the Elderling sequence beyond that.

In this endeavour, the author is mostly successful. Royal Assassin continues the storyline of Assassin's Apprentice, with FitzChivalry Farseer trying to overcome his status as the illegitimate son of a dead prince and a secret assassin to become a respected member of the court. He hopes to woo his childhood love, but King Shrewd wants him to marry for political advantage instead. Regal hopes to undermine and destroy Fitz, but Fitz's willingness to lead from the front and throw himself into battle against the Red Ship Raiders stymies him, as do Fitz's growing magical powers (in both the animalistic Wit and the telepathic Skill) and his canny support of Verity's bride, the Queen-in-Waiting Kettricken. Events boil over at the book's ending, which features a powerfully emotional moment of catharsis (arguably still the highlight of the entire sixteen-volume Elderling series to date) and setting the scene for the final confrontation in Assassin's Quest.

Hobb's facility with prose is enviable, creating a rich and engrossing fantasy world. Things may not move too far from the medieval fantasy norm and some of the worldbuilding doesn't entirely ring true (such as the vast size of the Six Duchies but the tiny size of its settlements and its apparently extremely low population), but for the most part the world of the Six Duchies is vividly and memorably portrayed. Her facility for characterisation also remains intact, with Kettricken, Patience, Burrich, Molly and Nighteyes all being well-drawn and convincing characters as well as Fitz himself.

Fitz has always been a problem for some readers, especially since the trilogy is told in the first person from his perspective. In the first volume Fitz was a little too passive and reactive and that problem persists into this second volume. However, in the latter half of Royal Assassin he does become more proactive in opposing Regal's plans. He even engages in some very mild political intrigue. It's no A Game of Thrones, but it does up the stakes a little at a key moment of the story.

Some of Hobb's key weaknesses as a writer do re-emerge in this volume, however. Her ability to conjure up the unfairness of life and the mountain of problems Fitz must struggle to overcome is remarkable, but there is also chapter after chapter where Fitz stews in the alleged utter misery of his life - as a favoured servant and assassin with a cool telepathic wolf companion and a beautiful, strong-willed girlfriend who loves him absolutely - whilst not really doing anything. It's still not as much of a problem as in later novels, but there is an interminable middle section to the novel and it feels like a comfortable 200 pages could have been shaved off the page count (already approaching twice the length of Assassin's Apprentice) without too much trouble.

Royal Assassin (****) is a bigger novel than its forebear and one with more political intrigue and action, at land and at sea. However, it's also overlong and suffers the same issues as its forebear but stretched over a longer page count: a plot that kicks into gear only intermittently and a protagonist too reactive for his own good. But Hobb's skills with character and emotion, and evoking her world in rich detail, continue to prove remarkable. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Lemming of Discord

Betrayed, tortured and left for dead, Fitz has survived the depredations of his mad uncle Regal and been taken to safety in the countryside of the Six Duchies. Plagued by nightmares and trauma, Fitz eventually recovers enough to swear himself to two tasks: the murder of Regal and the safe rescue of Verity, the long-missing true king.

Assassin's Quest concludes the Farseer Trilogy in a manner that I don't think anyone was quite expecting. The first two volumes of the Farseer series are traditional epic fantasies in many respects, but ones where more overt displays of magic and violence are rolled back in favour of a deeper emotional storyline and character development. Still, with their intrigue, battles, romance and betrayals (if separated by lots of long-winded introspection), there is much of the standard fantasy template within them.

Assassin's Quest is completely different. In fact, it's a very strange book. For most of the novel we are firmly in Fitz's head as he undergoes what can best be described as a PTSD-induced nervous and near-mental breakdown after the trauma he suffered at the end of Royal Assassin. Suffering severe depression and making awful judgement calls (as everyone calls him on but himself), Fitz has to first find himself and restore his confidence before he can embark on his long-delayed true quest, which is to find and rescue Verity. Eventually, after crossing (with agonising slowness and quite astonishing amounts of angst) the entire length of the Six Duchies, Fitz overcomes his demons and gets on with the story. The problem is that this happens some around page 500, meaning that the novel only then has 300 pages to wrap the entire trilogy up in.

You might imagine this means that those last 300 pages are full of incident and plot and character development as Hobb brings the story across the finish line? Not so much. Those 300 pages still meander, circling around major plot and character moments for dozens of pages before landing (and often exactly where the reader can see them going). Eventually, in the last few pages of the book, the author explains the background of the Elderlings, Forging, the Red Ship Raiders, the Skill and many other aspects of her world, but it comes so abruptly after almost 800 pages of slow-burning despair that it feels highly anti-climactic.

In some ways you have to respect Hobb for crafting such an utterly strange ending to a fantasy trilogy, one that shys away from convention and ignores every rule of plot structure and pacing. In many respects Hobb was writing a profoundly anti-epic fantasy, something similar to what Patrick Rothfuss appears to be doing with his trilogy (only with rather less humour), and in its sacrifice of plot and action and exposition for character and a realistic approach to how a real human mind might cope with the craziness of your average epic fantasy adventure, Hobb is clearly doing something different.

But different does not mean good and the thing about experiments is that they sometimes just don't work. Assassin's Quest has fine moments of characterisation (probably best exemplified in the relationship between Fitz and the Fool), some real moments of jaw-clenching terror and some very odd moments of real magical weirdness, but it is also a novel that unfolds with all the verve, pacing and tension of watching a lethargic snail travel thirty miles. The massive stakes and tensions raised over the course of almost 1,200 pages across the first two volumes are effectively handwaved away at the end of the novel: the Red Ship Raiders are defeated off-screen, the Fool remains resolutely unexplained and most of Fitz's friends and allies remain in complete ignorance that he is alive.

Obviously we know now there is more to come in the Tawny Man and Fitz and the Fool trilogies, but on its own merits Assassin's Quest (**½) is an altogether unsatisfying conclusion to the first series, languid to the point of unconsciousness until the too-rushed ending. There are some wonderful atmosphere moments and some occasionally effective dialogue, but overall it is a disappointing novel. Still, it is followed up by the far superior Liveship Traders trilogy. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

www.scifiexplorations.com

Hey Werthead. Thanks for sharing. These books are some of my all time favorite reads. Hobb's books are one of the few that I actually get excited to read when I know they're coming soon. I still set aside everything when a new release comes out. Though her new series suffers from some excess bloat at times, I am still a huge fan. I do like that each series brings something different to the table. I loved the Farseer books, but liked the Tawny Man even more. The Liveship were so different and opened the world up to some really cool things. The Rain Wilds took us down a totally different path, and returning to Fitz in the new series feels just right.

I look forward to your thoughts on the others if you are getting to them

Lemming of Discord

The Bingtown Traders have grown rich from the use of the liveships, great, sentient sailing ships made of the fabled wizardwood. After three generations of captains die on their decks, they quicken into life. Epheron Vestrit's death brings the liveship Vivacia to life, but the jubilations of the Vestrit family are cut short when it is revealed that the ship will pass into the ownership of Kyle Haven, the husband of Epheron's eldest daughter, rather than to his younger daughter Althea. Furious at this betrayal, Althea vows not to rest until the Vivacia belongs to her again. This resolve only hardens when Kyle decides to use the Vivacia to carry slaves, to the horror of his family.

Meanwhile, an unusually eloquent and cultured pirate captain named Kennit schemes to become King of the Pirate Isles. His plotting involves liberating slaver ships, winning the hearts and minds of the people...and finding and capturing a liveship.

Ship of Magic is the first novel in the Liveship Traders trilogy, which takes place in the same world as The Farseer Trilogy but in the lands to the south. There's an almost completely new cast and setting (one major Farseer character does show up in disguise), with most of the action taking place on ships or in dingy port towns. This shift to a nautical setting is refreshing and makes for a very different-feeling novel to the previous books.

The structure of the book also changes. Farseer was told in a first person point-of-view from FitzChivalry Farseer, but The Liveship Traders is told from a rotating POV structure. The major characters are Kennit, Althea, her mother Ronica, sister Keffria, niece Malta and nephew Wintrow, but other POV characters include the Vivacia herself, the beached, mad liveship Paragon and Brashen, another crewman on the Vivacia. This immediately makes for a grander, more epic story as the author moves between different characters.

Whilst this loses the immediacy of the Farseer books and the deep connection with Fitz, it does allow Hobb to cover the story from more angles and explain things more clearly rather than filtering all of the exposition and information through Fitz alone. It's a good move, justifying the novel's impressive page count (over 870 pages in paperback) rather more convincingly than the Farseer books, which felt rather padded out to reach such lengths.

Indeed, although I've only to date read Hobb's first six novels, Ship of Magic is easily the best. The story is epic, but it feels tight with naturalistic character development of a large cast and events proceed at a steady clip. Hobb's main skill has always been in the development of a convincing emotional connection to the characters and that skill is in impressive form here. We share Althea's frustration and betrayal, Wintrow's shock and hurt at his relationship with his father Kyle and the casual betrayal of his calling, Ronica's uneasy dealings with the Rain Wild Traders as she tries to protect her family's holdings and Kennit's ambitions as he strives to make his people more than what they are.

Kennit is easily Hobb's most fascinating character to date. He is greedy, selfish and arrogant, but he also has a fast-moving intelligence and wit and altruistic outcomes see to flow from his self-centred acts. Kennit's ability to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances on the fly and ensure that he always comes out on top is impressive. Kennit clearly has negative characteristics, but it's not entirely clear in Ship of Magic if he is supposed to be a villain. Indeed, it is Kyle Haven who more readily fulfils that role in this book.

Ship of Magic (*****) is an outstanding fantasy novel, and an impressive return to form after the disappointing slog that was Assassin's Quest. The book moves with pace and vigour despite its length, the cast of characters is fascinating, the worldbuilding subtle but convincing, the background politics intriguing and the book moves with tremendous purpose. The ending will leave you eager to read the next book, The Mad Ship, immediately. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Lemming of Discord

The fortunes of the Vestrit family have become more desperate. Their liveship, the Vivacia, has been captured by the notorious "pirate king" Kennit and is now helping liberate slaver ships on the seas between Jamaillia and Chalced. The Vestrits have no choice but to help refloat the mad liveship Paragon in the hope they can convince the deranged vessel to help them regain the ship and rescue their kin.

The Mad Ship is the middle volume of The Liveship Traders trilogy and very much reads like one. The story doesn't really start or finish, instead transitioning from the beginning to the end without necessarily having a defining storyline itself. The storylines begun in Ship of Magic are pretty strong so having them continue is fine, and the new additions to the world - a subplot involving the Satrap of Jamaillia and one of his Consorts, and a new story set in an Elderling city in the Rain River Wilds - are well-judged and engrossing.

However, the novel definitely loses some of the pace and momentum of Ship of Magic, which remains my favourite Hobb novel (again, only having read the first six). Hobb's net is cast wider here and the story, world and characters remain fascinating, but there's also much greater periods of time in which nothing much seems to be happening, or we touch base (again) with the Vestrit family having another grim conference about the status of the lower field and getting embarrassed with a family friend whose clothes are a bit old.

Still, if the momentum isn't quite as swift as in the previous novel, Hobb's other strengths remain on full display. The depth of characterisation is remarkable, especially of previously-annoying characters like Malta who develops impressively in this novel beyond the more stereotypical, troublesome teenager of the first book. The biggest success is in the curious relationship between Kennit, Etta, Wintrow and Vivacia, which defies cliche at every turn and becomes a gripping study in character dynamics, power structures and obligation (Hobb does torpedo this, rather frustratingly, in the final volume of the trilogy but at this point it's fascinating).

There's also some uncharacteristic (for Hobb) large-scale action scenes which she handles well, some more deft political maneuverings and some effective mystical dream sequences which hint at a major plot revelation about the nature of the liveships and their place in the world.

The Mad Ship (****) doesn't impress as much as Ship of Magic and definitely feels like it's a slower, more relaxed book, but it evolves the story and characters nicely and sets things up well for the final (and rather more problematic) volume in the trilogy, Ship of Destiny. The book is available now in the UK and USA.

Lemming of Discord

The liveship Vivacia is in the hands of the pirate king Kennit, who has won the living ship's heart with his kindness and rejection of slavery. But Althea Vestrit is not prepared to let her family ship be taken into piracy. Having refloated the liveship Paragon and assembled a crew, she now plans to retake her vessel. Meanwhile, the forces of Jamaillia and Chalced have sacked Bingtown. The surviving Traders have to rebuild and reassert themselves in times of great adversity. But, far to the north, the first dragon seen in the world for centuries has taken wing...

Ship of Destiny concludes the Livship Traders trilogy, the second major movement (of five, so far) in Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings mega-series. The conclusion to her first series in this world, The Farseer Trilogy, was sabotaged by the book being incredibly overlong, with poor pacing and structural issues that made ploughing through it a chore. Ship of Destiny is certainly a far superior ending, juggling a much larger number of stories and interesting characters far more effectively, although some similar issues remain. It does feel like events continue to unfold more slowly and laboriously than they really should, and the book has more endings than the film version of The Return of the King.

Still, Hobb's gifts of characterisation continue to shine with her treatment of her major cast. After being fairly restrained in the previous novel, it's good to see Althea reassert herself as a major protagonist and after all of his self-delusions and justifications, it's good to see Kennit's flaws and plans blow up in his face. However, I can't help but feel that the mechanism Hobb uses to make it clear that Kennit is a villain and not a cool, amoral antihero - the rape of another character - is a little too obvious. Unlike some characters who introduce this idea into their work for shock value, Hobb owns this story decision and follows through on its consequences effectively, which is a refreshing change even as it makes for some grim reading.

The storylines and characters are developed satisfyingly, although as we reach the climax the focus shifts to events on the Vivacia and Paragon and the storylines in Bingtown and Trehaug are completely abandoned. This is a bit surprising as major characters vanish abruptly from the story for hundreds of pages at the end of the novel, but Hobb actually makes it work quite well when we eventually catch up with those characters at the end of the story.

Ship of Destiny (****) is a surprisingly relaxed conclusion to a highly enjoyable and some different kind of fantasy trilogy, with Hobb's fine gifts for characterisation on full display. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Lemming of Discord

Fifteen years have passed since the end of the Red Ship War. FitzChivalry Farseer is believed dead, with only a few knowing the truth that he survived and helped end the war and the threat of the cruel King Regal. Living a comfortable life as a smallholder with his wolf Nighteyes and an adopted son, Hap, Fitz occasionally has strange dreams. He dismisses these, until his old friend the Fool visits with news: Prince Dutiful, the son of Queen Kettricken and the late King Verity, has vanished in a very strange manner. Reluctantly, Fitz returns to Buckkeep and a life he thought he'd left behind.

Fool's Errand is the fourth novel featuring the adventures of FitzChivalry Farseer, picking up after the events of the original Farseer Trilogy. It's also the seventh novel overall in the Realm of the Elderlings setting, which now extends across sixteen books. It's a bit of a fresh start in the series, as although it follows up on events in the Farseer books (and a brief mention is made of the Liveship Traders trilogy), it also introduces new characters and new storylines.

Fool's Errand is a slow book, at least to start with. The first 200 pages - more than a third of the novel - are taken up by Fitz's home life and routine, with lengthy ruminations on chicken-farming. Fitz's main concern isn't war, death or assassinations, but instead raising enough coin to find his adopted son a good apprenticeship. Some may find this sequence interminable, but Hobb uses this sequence to establish Fitz's good, comfortable and quiet life away from the mayhem of the court, and what it means when it is taken away when a new crisis erupts.

The rest of the novel is more familiar: a prince has gone missing, the Witted people of the Six Duchies are rebelling against the persecution and murder of their kind by forming an armed resistance and a new peace treaty between the Duchies and the Outislands is in jeopardy. Keen for people to not realise he's survived, Fitz adopts a new identity (the uncouth Tom Badgerlock) and undertakes clandestine mission for the crown. This results in some splendid, classic epic fantasy elements such as an awkward cliffside sword fight against superior enemy numbers, the experimental use of magic and the gradual teasing and unravelling of a labyrinthine conspiracy.

This doesn't mean that Hobb's straying too far from her established tropes. When in doubt about what to do next, she just makes Fitz's life more miserable and horrible than ever before, killing off loved ones and finding ways to put him in as awkward and painful a situation as possible. It's all vaguely depressing, which is an odd juxtaposition given that the second half of the novel is as lively and swashbuckling as Hobb has ever gotten.

Still, if you're in the mood for a beautifully-written, somewhat melancholy fantasy where the focus is firmly on the characters rather than magic or battles, Fool's Errand (****) is a very fine novel. It's also surprisingly stand-alone: you'd definitely miss a fair amount if you hadn't read the Farseer trilogy, but the plot is focused on a new story and situation. Also, whilst the story clearly is set to continue after the final page, there's no major cliffhanger ending. The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Lemming of Discord

Fitz has returned to Buckkeep, but it's far from the hero's welcome that might have been imagined. He serves the Queen and spymaster Chade incognito, posing as Tom Badgerlock, bodyguard and servant to the visiting "Lord Golden" (in reality, the Fool, likewise in disguise). He now has to train Prince Dutiful in the ways of both the Skill and the Wit, whilst also investigating the threat the Piebald (militant Witted rebels) pose to the crown. But delegations from overseas arrive, one from the Outislands to the north and another from the Liveship Traders of Bingtown, both emissaries bringing opportunity...and great danger.

The Golden Fool is the middle volume of the Tawny Man trilogy, as well as the eighth book in the wider Realm of the Elderlings series, bringing the overall series to its halfway point. Its predecessor, Fool's Errand, was one of the stronger single novels in the series, with a very good, mostly self-contained storyline. The Golden Fool, alas, isn't quite as strong at standing on its own two feet, but it is very much what readers have come to expect from a Robin Hobb novel: introspective, brooding but also a deeply human work of fantasy fiction.

The Golden Fool centres itself on Fitz's relationships at Bukkeep, with Queen Kettricken, Chade, his foster-son Hap, Prince Dutiful and, most notably, the Fool. The Fool has always been the most enigmatic character in the series (for all that he is the only character to appear in every book to date) and Hobb has been very careful not to give away too much of his secrets. This book doesn't really get into that either, instead being more interested in the ambiguities of Fitz and the Fool's relationship.

That's not to say there isn't any action - the plot turns on a very brutal sword fight - but it's definitely a quieter and more introspective book than even the norm for Hobb. At first I thought the detailed account of Fitz's everyday comings and goings for the Fool, Chade and the Queen was a prelude to a more traditional fantasy narrative (as was well-done in Fool's Errand) but instead it turns out to be the whole book. This makes The Golden Fool a prime example of "middle-book" syndrome, one which exists to bridge the start of the story to the end.

Still, even a slow, bridging Robin Hobb novel is a cut above most fantasy. The prose is exemplary, the characterisation is absolutely first-rate and it's a brave and refreshing fantasy novel where the most important thing that happens is a quiet (but brutally honest) conversation between two old friends. And it does leave the story in a very interest place for the next novel in the series, Fool's Fate.

Lemming of Discord

FitzChivalry Farseer has, reluctantly, re-entered the corridors of power in the Six Duchies. Posing as guardsman Tom Badgerlock, he has been assigned to journey with Prince Dutiful to the Outislands, where the Prince seeks to win the hand in marriage of the Outislander Narcheska, ending all enmity between the two nations. But there are other agendas at work. To win a lasting peace, Fitz must help his prince slay a dragon…and take a stand against his greatest and best friend.

The concluding novel in Robin Hobb’s Tawny Many Trilogy is something I was bracing myself for. Previously, Hobb’s form has been to write an exciting, busy opening volume in a trilogy and then have a slow middle volume which leaves the final book with a lot of heavy lifting to do to end the story, usually resulting in a third book which wraps up the story but with serious issues with structure and pacing. Ship of Destiny deal with the problem somewhat well, but Assassins' Quest really suffered from it. The relatively slow pace of The Golden Fool was also not a good sign.

Fool’s Fate, fortunately, rejects this issue. Whilst you could never call any Hobb novel fast-paced and action-packed, this enormous book (or rather the first two-thirds of this book) comes as close as she gets.

The book consists of a long sea voyage, an exploration of Outisland culture and then an expedition to the island of Aslevjal, where a dragon is said to sleep in the ice. These sequences of explorations on a glacier and survival in freezing temperatures with unknown dangers lurking in the dark are atmospheric and effective, with occasional scares reminiscent of Dan Simmons’ The Terror.

There is then an epic showdown and an appropriately grand finale…which takes place 200 pages before the book ends. The rest of the book is an extended epilogue in which everyone’s fate is revealed and – dare we say it – a couple of characters are even allowed to have happy endings. There is, however, enough material left dangling for both the Rain Wild Chronicles quartet and the Fitz and the Fool trilogy.

As with most of Hobb’s work, and this trilogy in particular, the book is deliberately paced and introspective, with Fitz ruminating on his mistakes a lot. Fortunately, he is also allowed to develop more as a character and even – gasp! – to actually make amends for past mistakes and move forward with his life rather than just moaning about his lot in life. The ending to Fool’s Fate is suspiciously uplifting, in fact, to the point I’m suspicious Hobb is just keeping her powder dry to make things even worse in later books.

There is also a sense of completeness to this book. It addresses outstanding elements from the Liveship Traders books and even finishes off a whole host of storylines left unresolved from the original Farseer Trilogy. The result is a book that works as a finale to one trilogy and an effective epilogue to two others, and is one of Hobb's strongest books to date.

As usual for Hobb, the characterisation is rich, the emotional storyline is impressive and, less usually, even the worldbuilding is impressive. It also brings enough closure to the story to make the trilogy stand alone. Fool's Fate (****½) is available now in the UK and USA.